November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving
This morning’s newspapers have articles on holiday shopping and are
packed with advertising flyers. Jesus tells us that the Father supplies all our
needs, and for that I am thankful. However, when I see hoards of people lined
up and pushing one another to be first in line for bargains I have to laugh. Even
we believers have a streak of paganism when it comes to Black Friday. “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we
eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the
pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need
them.” (Matt 6:31-32 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Black Friday. I don’t know. Is it really about sales and good deals? I’ve always stayed away from it like the plague! So if I learn it is about good deals, am I going to go get caught up in the fray? Saving money is becoming more important. But maintaining that groomed sheen of your Nov. 30 blog is even more. And I think all of the pushing and shoving and racing to be first, a place in which Jesus’ thinking did not take comfort, might be a bit soul soiling.
-----On the other hand, I can not say such a thing without noticing the slop of a different genre spilled down my spiritual T-shirt. I’ve always been a laid back, I’ll-git’er-done-before-it-needs-done kind of guy. And I generally didn’t push myself to be all too sociable, either. Let me make an analogy of something a bit unrelated. There’s been a lot of bemoaning the fate of the American Indian. We white types treated them despicably; I agree. Manifest destiny was an arrogant and short sighted attitude. But God told Adam and Eve to multiply and be fruitful. He wasn’t meaning we should study math and plant apple seeds. He wants people! Lots of people! And the centuries were pressing for a population explosion - goody, goody! The American continent sat rich in resources for growing God’s field of folks from the hundreds of millions into the several billions. All the American Indians were doing with it was preserving a place for buffalo to drop their chips. Many, many chips. Now this neither glosses over the heartbreak of how the Indians were treated nor the sorrow of their homes lost. But that arrogant manifest destiny cultivated a stolen continent into the cupboard of resources for billions of what God wanted more than buffalo chips: people in multiples, fruitful people. Likewise, I think God wants less of my sit-back-n-take’er-easy-t-not-make-a-mistake approach and more of a get-out-there-n-spread-around-some-joy approach. Dents, dings, and scratches are tolerable, but failure’s not.
-----It doesn’t make racing to be first in line right any more than multiplying people made dozing the Indians out of their homes right. It doesn’t make staying out of chaotic situations to avoid becoming scratch-n-dent appliances any more right than a little bit of grooming makes racing for first in line right. We live where dirty and rumply is gotten at almost every move we make, good or bad. So, whether out of basic nature or primarily to retain sociability, grooming becomes an ongoing project, lines form, and people race. As many different attitudes, purposes, and sentiments as are represented by all those in line, I think maybe what isn’t worth it is the trying to figure out whether the whole darn thing is or isn’t right.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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